


Gold amongst the White

by KatherineKrawl



Category: Arctic (2018), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, The Big C (TV)
Genre: Afraid of being alone, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Broken Bones, Falling In Love, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Lee is the best nurse, Lee loves bears, M/M, Oral Sex, Some amputated toes and fingers, Spongebath, Survivor Guilt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22280644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatherineKrawl/pseuds/KatherineKrawl
Summary: After being rescued from the Arctic, Overgård is terrified of being alone.> “I'll leave you to your rest,” Lee spoke kindly, and Overgård heard him shuffle around the room. His eyes sprung back open.“No,” he heard himself plead before finding the strength to care about his dignity. He was tired, he was exhausted, and wanted little else but to close his eyes to drift into slumber. But it was frightening, near everlasting, to fall into the darkness of white, believing to be alone again. He was afraid to dream of snow and ice, of death and despair, and hopeless isolation.He longed, more than anything, to feel up for up, down for down, real for real and dreams for dreams again.He didn't want to be alone.
Relationships: Lee Fallon/Overgård (Arctic)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 106





	Gold amongst the White

It was a steady beep that lured him from the white darkness behind his eyes. A persistent sound that promised security to his subconscious mind.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Sound. Sound other than the fighting wind, the weight of his boots in the snow. Other than the rustling of his gloves, his jacket and the dragging of the sledge. Other than the sound of his own screams.

This was a machine. Civilization. People.

Soon, other noises reached his ears. Footsteps, metallic thuds, cotton being beaten out. Sometimes a voice without the shape of words, but with a soft timbre that caressed him from within. 

His skin was no longer bitten by the frost. His ears weren't chafed by the slicing wind. His eyes didn't burn with the brightness of the reflecting sun.

Instead, a gentle hand adjusted his pillow, combed back his hair, washed his raw, dry skin clean. 

He wasn't alone. 

**

“Mr. Overgård,” the man spoke his name. Their eyes met. His outline was dark and hazy, but Overgård could make out curly hair and pale skin. The man's scrubs were a maroon red, - “you're awake.”

Overgård's tight, broken lips cracked further when he opened them. “Th- wmn...” he tried, but his voice was sandstone in his throat.

The man stepped closer, shushing him as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “Shh, don't exhaust yourself,” he said. Calming him, and keeping him down on the bed. 

“Th- wmn...” Overgård tried again, but his words were lost in raw flesh and swollen tongue. His eyes closed, pained against the overhead light.

The world was too bright.

And he sank back into his white darkness.

**

He muffled the same words two days later, after he had sipped some honey tea and the curtains had been drawn, the lights turned down, an extra pillow in his back.

The man was there again when he opened his eyes. He was not the only hospital staff to see him, but it was the only one Overgård remembered. He knew those soothing tones, because the man was the only one who spoke to him, even when he couldn't hear, couldn't move, couldn't answer.

“Your travel companion is alive,” the man said, sitting on the edge of the bed as he washed Overgård's face with a cloth.

“S-h-h l-i-v-e?” Overgård forced out, his face contorting under the words. Her image was a blur in his memory, but her weak heartbeat was still strong in his ears. He still felt her hand in his, weakly squeezing around his fingers.

He had wanted her to live. It was the only thing that had mattered. He had long lost the strength to fight for his own, but her life... hers mattered.

“She's been moved to a different hospital,” the man spoke gently to him. His eyes were blue and his hands were soft. “But she's alive.”

She lived. She lived.

“Shkay,” he said, when the man stood from the bed. Overgård tried to reach for his arm with a bandaged hand.

Wanting him to stay.

“She's OK,” the man assured him as he took Overgård's hand, and gently placed it on the sheets. 

He took back his seat on the bed. “I'll be here,” the man promised. His lips smiled. “Sleep.”

**

Time passed, and passed, and dark was light, light was dark.

Overgård was awake, longer each day. Doctors came, specialists too, but words felt strange in his mouth and he didn't speak with any of them. They spoke, endlessly so, but their words - their voices - were too loud and too clouded for him to understand.

It was only the man with the gentle hum that he could listen to, without it quickly becoming overbearing. Words about food, weather, chores or medication. A calm flow of sound without a single question. A warm, summer rain.

That morning, after the night shift had ended, the man came into his room and Overgård was able to greet him for the very first time.

“Hello,” he said, and heard his own voice rattle in his mouth. His lips tightened at the sudden flood of memories. _Hello_ , the woman had said to him, after he had left her for dead. _Hello_.

“Good morning, Mr. Overgård,” the man greeted him with happy surprise, as he came to sit on the edge of his bed again. Every day he sat there, just for a while. Talking as he washed him, fed him, changed his bedding...

Even with his eyes closed, Overgård could sometimes feel the mattress dip.

“Are you comfortable?” the man asked, as his hands reached past Overgård's head to push up the pillow.

Overgård looked at him. Straight teeth, stubbled cheeks, curls that grew almost carefully around his face. He was thin. Fragile.

“C-mfrt-ble?” he asked, still struggling to create proper vowels with his tongue.

The man bit his lips, his eyes lowering to the bandaged hands that lay atop the sheets.

“I'm not surprised you forgot the meaning,” he said, touching the wrapped fingers as he lifted them. Examining the bandaging.

Overgård pushed his head back into the pillow. Touch was not always welcome, but the man's was kind rather than clinical. He felt himself warm with life in response.

“Are you in any pain?” the man asked him, soft concern in his connecting eyes.

“My l-g,” Overgård answered. At first, he hadn't been able to feel anything. His body had been numb, and barely responsive. But now there was a sharp nagging from his hips to his toes that traveled along his nerves.

“I'll give you something,” the man said, standing up to busy himself with the drips around the bed. Today he wore blue, and the color matched his eyes.

There was a moment where Overgård could only see the man's torso as he worked overhead. The machines beeped, before the man sat back down on the bed.

“This will help,” he said, warmth in the creases of his narrow face. He was unlike the others. Nurses, doctors, surgeons, they looked at Overgård with a sense of fear, a sadness or a misplaced glint of pride. 

“Your leg...” the man hissed between his teeth as he lifted a corner of the sheet. A thick cast was revealed. “It's a miracle you still have it.”

Overgård watched the white plaster covering his leg from thigh to ankle. The boulder. “T-was st-ck,” he said. “H-d to br-k-t.”

The man followed his gaze, pressing pale lips together. “You did more than that,” he said.

The man proceeded by washing him: humming a soft tune under his breath as a sponge glided warm water over Overgård's skin. Overgård was left watching him through thick eyelids as he was rubbed dry with a soft towel.

The man didn't speak until he was done, and when he did, the spark in his voice was dim. “We weren't sure you were ever going to wake up,” he said, as he placed the sheets back over Overgård's chest. “You didn't wake for nearly ten days.”

A hand brushed over Overgård's shoulder, and a blue gaze lingered over the damp tendrils of his hair. “Do you remember how you got here?” the man asked him. His eyes were bright, his sockets slightly hollow.

Many had asked him that question. White coats, green scrubs...

Overgård had never been able to provide an answer. His throat had been too raw, his tongue too thick, his head too clouded and his energy... reluctant. But he remembered.

He remembered all of it.

“Thhelcoptr,” he said, looking at the man on the bed as the bandages around his fingers flexed into the white sheet. His last memory was the noise of the heavy propeller, blowing ice into the skin of his face as it rose, circling, flying off without them.

He hadn't seen it return. Hadn't heard it land. He had already been slipping into darkness, holding her hand on the ice that seeped into their clothes.

“S-she's right here...” he heard himself utter, an echo of his mind as he stared past the man at the endless white of the wall behind.

He had watched the helicopter leave. And with their leaving, he had died. She had died.

Until he had woken up here.

And everything was still white.

“They came back,” the man said, a small smile on his pink lips. “They found you.” Fingers rested on the skin of Overgård's naked upper arm. A tired limb, still. 

“You still have your arms and legs,” the man said. “Even your ears, your nose and most of your fingers.” The man touched Overgård's wrists, turning them up as they looked down at the bandaged hands.

“You only lost six tips,” the man said. “Three on each hand.”

Overgård wriggled his thick fingers inside the bandages, but didn't feel anything. No pain, no difference, no regret.

“And four toes,” the man continued, looking over to the end of the bed where sheets were hiding Overgård's wrapped feet. “It's a good deal, all things considered,” the man offered him a sly smile without traces of pity.

His face was thin but lively, and moments like these were the only time Overgård saw friendly, blood-pumping and grateful life shine with his own eyes since a very long time.

A flower in the endless snow.

The man stood from the bed. “You're quite a miracle, Mr. Overgård,” he said.

**

“We tried to contact your mother when you were brought in,” the man said, looking down at his clipboard as he tapped a pencil against his cheek. “We found the home she is a resident at, but we were unable to speak to her.”

Blue eyes looked at him expectingly.

“Alzhmr's,” Overgård said, as he sipped from a cup of lukewarm tea.

The blue eyes lingered. “Alzheimer's,” the man repeated slowly. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

The pencil stopped tapping, as the man leaned his back against the wall. He hesitated before he asked; “Is there anyone else you would like us to contact?” 

But there wasn't.

Overgård thought of his estranged brother. His ex-wife. His best friend, buried on the Arctic under a pile of stones.

“No,” he said.

The man nodded. They didn't speak, but he lingered in his room until well after the tea was finished.

**

“What's your name?” 

Overgård could finally form the words properly after many days of honey tea had passed.

The man laughed, and the sound was like chiming bells in the wind. “I'm Lee,” he said. “Lee Fallon.”

Overgård smiled. His lips ached with the stretch. “Hello, Lee,” he said. He didn't reach out his bandaged hand, but nodded in Lee's direction. “I'm Helmut.”

Lee huffed a laugh. “Everyone knows who you are,” he hummed, gesturing his arms wide. “You're a celebrity.” He sat on the side of the bed, almost near Overgård's shoulder. “A real-life hero.”

Lee sounded pleased as he patted Overgård's upper arm with a gentle hand. He smiled, before flashing his gaze to the table beside Overgård's bed. “Look at those flowers, gifts and cards sent to you by admirers... fans,” he said, his mouth stretching wide, showing teeth. “Your story is on the news worldwide.”

Then, Lee's eyes lingered on the window, where the curtains opened to a crack of daylight. “We struggle to keep out journalists.”

Overgård watched Lee. His silhouette colored earthy reds and browns against the stark white wall. His blue eyes warmed green by the ray of sunlight.

Overgård didn't look back at the table. The flowers, the cards, all from a world that existed outside the glass and stone of the walls... He pretended not to see any of it. 

It choked him.

“Helmut?”

Lee's eyes were back on him. His brow was low with question, and Overgård knew he could see the apprehension on his face. He closed his eyes, hiding away his fear for the white wide world outside.

“I'll leave you to your rest,” Lee spoke kindly, and Overgård heard him shuffle around the room. His eyes sprung back open.

“No,” he heard himself plead before finding the strength to care about his dignity. He was tired, he was exhausted, and wanted little else but to close his eyes to drift into slumber. But it was frightening, near everlasting, to fall into the darkness of white, believing to be alone again. He was afraid to dream of snow and ice, of death and despair, and hopeless isolation.

He longed, more than anything, to feel up for up, down for down, real for real and dreams for dreams again.

He didn't want to be alone.

“Could you stay?” he croaked, looking at Lee almost aimlessly as his head rolled lightly side to side on the pillow. Anxiety.

Lee looked at him, but didn't stare, instead he stepped back to the bed, and took one bandaged hand in his. “As long as you want me to,” he said, and Overgård felt the gentle pressure on his muscles, his hidden skin and bones.

“I could read to you?” Lee said, his voice rising with question as he looked around the room. “Do you...?” Lee hesitated, his eyes back on the flower table. “Do you want me to read the cards?”

But Overgård didn't look back at the table. He knew there were many. Some bright, some modest, some screaming their _get well_ messages. All of them coming to him from beyond the hospital walls. All of them from the world outside the window. “No,” he said, eyes on the ceiling. “Not the cards.”

Lee placed his hand back before Overgård heard him shuffle around the room again. “I can read you a book,” he then offered as he pulled up a visitors' chair and pushed it as close to Overgård as it would reach.

Overgård's eyes brushed the cover; the silhouette of a stag against the orange glow of the sunset. Nothing he was familiar with.

“It's about an FBI agent and his psychiatrist,” Lee said with a near chuckle, as he thumbed open the first page. “Definitely a good read.”

Overgård hummed absently at the words, because it didn't matter what Lee would read him. The idea of closing his eyes and drifting to sleep on the soothing tones of Lee's steady, warmly-toned voice sounded safe. Much safer than trying to fall into unconsciousness in a room full of white silence.

“Thank you,” he said, as the man opened the slightly worn book on his lap.

There was a silence, a shift of weight, before Lee started to read gentle words to him from the first page. None of them registered as Overgård closed his eyes, but he focused on the voice that kept him steady like a life-jacket; keeping his head above water in a wildly thrashing sea.

He wasn't in the snow. The woman lived. He was no longer on the cruel ice of the Arctic, and he wasn't alone.

He wasn't alone.

**

But he _was_ alone.

Overgård heard nothing but the icy wind that burned his ears. He saw nothing but the white that blinded his eyes. The polar bear growled in the distance, getting closer. He couldn't see the sledge that held the fish, the water, the woman. She was gone, she was dead, and he was dying. His toes were black in the snow, his skin was bare and nearly blue. Exposed, without his boots or jacket.

He stood there, closed in by what he had been trying to escape, and suddenly heard the helicopter above. He looked up and saw it right over his head, flying and flying up, and up and up into the stormy sky. Forgetting him. 

He shouted. He took a deep breath, and he shouted with all his strength within. He shouted, shouted, shouted without a single noise leaving his throat. He couldn't scream. They were leaving, and he couldn't scream for them. But he tried. He tried until he crumbled. Until he crumbled down into the snow.

“Helmut.”

But it didn't burn him. The snow wasn't cold. A warm hand touched his shoulder.

“Helmut.”

There were tears on his cheeks. He tasted the salt in his mouth. There was blood there, too.

“It's OK. You're OK.”

He was hunched forward, curling into himself as he jerked and shivered.

“Helmut, it's Lee.”

He opened his eyes, at last finding directions to wake as he was pulled from the nightmare into the hospital bed. Lee was standing beside him, brushing his hair with his fingers. His touch was warm.

“Come, lie back on your pillow,” Lee guided him, his voice a soft caress and his eyes pained with worry. Overgård was stretched back on the bed, head on the supporting pillow that held his neck.

“You were having a nightmare,” Lee soothingly explained to him, and grabbed a tissue to carefully dab at Overgård's cheeks. “That's completely normal.”

Their eyes met, and Lee's looked pink around the whites. His lips were thin, his forehead creased, his skin flushed and pale all at once.

“I-I'm sorry,” Overgård croaked, as he felt his heart-rate and breathing slowly inch to a much more natural state.

Lee's hand was on his forehead, stroking lightly over his damp skin and hair as he breathed gentle noises. It made Overgård feel cocooned. It made Overgård feel safe.

One sob pushed out before he could suppress it, and in an instant, Overgård felt Lee's forehead press against his. Arms folded around his shoulders as Lee breathed in deep. “Don't ever be sorry,” was whispered against him, before lips pressed against the skin of his hairline.

For a moment, the ice in his head melted to sunny gold.

“Please don't leave me,” Overgård begged blindly through his tears when Lee's arms released him. Overgård tried to follow, shuffling to inch near the edge of the mattress. The man didn't speak, but kicked off his clogs and climbed onto the bed.

Scrubs brushed Overgård's arms as Lee slid in beside him, and he reached for him with bandaged hands. Pulling Lee into an embrace that the other man folded into. A chin rested against Overgård's neck, and soft breath fanned over his skin.

“I want you to stay,” Overgård rasped into the dark room, and Lee tangled their legs together in response.

“I'm here, Helmut. I'm not leaving you.”

Overgård slept, and dreamed of golden summers.

**

Lee made good on his promise. 

He greeted Overgård the following morning with a sheepish smile and sleep-hazed eyes as he stretched himself out before straightening his uniform. He left to arrange breakfast.

“Maybe you should allow the psychiatrist to see you,” Lee said, swinging his legs off the side of the mattress as he watched Overgård eat while. Lee was small. His eyes were soft, nearly green today.

Overgård ate thick oatmeal off his spoon. The curtains, he noticed, weren't as properly closed as he liked to keep them. A beam of sunlight fell into the stuffy room.

For the first time, he didn't really mind it.

“No,” Overgård answered, and watched Lee's lips twitch before he lowered his eyes to his bowl of oatmeal. “I don't want to talk to any specialists anymore.”

Many had come through, trying, prying and poking at him, pursuing him to think of the endless white and tell them... tell them everything, 

He couldn't.

“Then what do you want?” Lee asked him quietly, as his hand came to fold around Overgård's wrist.

Their eyes met, and Overgård followed Lee's touch by sitting up, pressing their foreheads back together.

Lips grazed Lee's cheek, who smiled at the unvocalized reply.

“OK,” the man smiled. “OK.”

**

The bandages had come off, and Overgård had been able to see his hands for the first time since he was brought into the hospital. The skin was raw, but red, and some of his fingertips and nails were missing. The skin around them was purple and blue, thick and throbbing, but alive.

“It itches,” he complained as Lee started washing his hands with lukewarm water and soap. His feet would be next. The man hummed comfortingly as he rubbed soapy circles into the exposed skin.

“It will feel better soon,” he promised. Overgård knew it too. His leg had been as useless as a snapped twig when he had first woken, but now he was able to balance his weight on it as he walked with crutches, with a thick cast folded around the mending bones.

He was healing. Was she?

“Is there news about the woman?” he asked, as Lee cleaned his skin with tender caresses. It warmed him all the way into his belly, which made him feel a sharp pinch of guilt in his chest.

He hadn't stopped worrying.

Lee had just made his head feel lighter. 

“She is still hospitalized in a German clinic,” Lee said, moving down Overgård's chest with the wash cloth. Their eyes met, and Overgård found it difficult to breathe.

Lee pulled the cloth away, rinsing it. “But she is currently kept in a comatose state.”

His words were soft, but landed like a blunt stone to Overgård's chest.

The woman. Lee had said she was alive. He had said she was OK. 

She was OK...

Lee heard his stuttering breath, and turned back as he brought the wash cloth to Overgård's legs. Five toes remained on two feet. Four had been taken, one Overgård had removed himself.

“She is alive,” Lee soothed, rubbing a dry hand over his calf and ankle. “They are keeping her under until it's safe for her to wake.”

Overgård swallowed. His throat no longer hurt from cold and dehydration, but it felt thick nonetheless. “She has a family,” he said. “She has a child.”

But she didn't have a husband. She didn't have her child's father. Because when they had tried to land the helicopter to get to him, the helicopter had crashed, and he had died. 

He had died trying to save him, and the only thing Overgård had been able to give him was a grave of ice and piled up stones.

They should have left him. They could have come back when the wind had died down.

They should have just left him there.

“She's stable, Overgård,” Lee's voice pulled him from the depths. “She's with her family.”

Tears welled up from a place behind his eyes, and they fell over his cheeks, down his temples. His ears stained wet.

“I'll keep track of her,” Lee assured him, as he cleaned the skin between remaining toes. One hand rested on Overgård's shin. “I'll tell you when I know more.”

Overgård breathed, staring at the ceiling as tears pooled by his ear and into his neck. He concentrated on the fingers on his skin as Lee cleaned and cut his toenails, massaged the damaged skin to life and rubbed his soles and arches.

“You could write to her,” Lee broke the silence, his voice a kind breath of air in the quiet room. “You could say what you wish her to know when she wakes up.”

Overgård closed his eyes. The gray lines of the white ceiling started to resemble shapes of the holes he had used for fishing.

“Yes,” he said, after moments of breathing. “Yes.” 

That was what he wanted to do.

“I'll help you,” Lee offered, as he put down the wash cloth, and came to stand beside Overgård. Fingertips wiped at the tears.

Overgård closed his eyes into the caress on his temple, before he kissed the fingers that brushed past his lips.

“It's OK,” Lee told him.

**

His cast was no longer white.

Lee had drawn on it with a Sharpie. He had worked on the plaster one evening as Overgård ate his spaghetti dinner. Without a word, he had sat himself beside Overgård's leg and pulled out multiple pens in various colors.

When he was done, Overgård looked down to see a big, brown bear smiling brightly back at him. Surrounding the bear were green bushes and trees, a blue stream of water and a bright, round sun in the sky. Red flowers gathered by the riverbank, and a yellow bird perched in one of the trees.

No longer did he have to stare at the endless white plaster.

Because Lee had drawn him summer.

“Do you like it?” Lee asked, grinning at the somewhat childish images that stretched from thigh to ankle.

Overgård looked at it, and felt the weight of the snow-white plaster lighten on his skin. “It's colorful,” he said, unknowing how to voice his feelings.

But Lee smiled: “You're the bear,” he said, chuckling at his own private joke and shifting his hips on the mattress with a contagious beam in his eyes. 

“And who are you?” Overgård asked, daring to place a hand on Lee's shoulder as he looked over the drawing.

Lee laughed, looking over his shoulder to grin at him. “You tell me,” he challenged. He was still small. Still fragile and thin and pale. But he was shining, radiating life and color. Golden warmth.

And Overgård pointed at the round yellow sun.

**

Lee was standing between his legs, his hands on Overgård's shoulders. Overgård was sitting up on the edge of the bed, crutches on either side.

Lee had helped him sit up, fully prepared to guide him into a standing position next. But when arms had folded around him, and their noses had nearly brushed, Overgård had tilted up his head to look into ocean blue eyes.

Overgård had stopped shifting weight to his legs. Lee had stopped tugging on his shoulders. Instead, hands had come to caress Overgård's clean-shaved face, as Overgård's damaged fingers tightened in the maroon scrubs.

They shared a kiss. A real kiss. Soft and light, warm and whole. It lasted more than a moment.

In that moment, Overgård felt the need for Lee to hold him, to swallow him, to home him inside the golden glow that he carried endlessly beneath that pale skin. Their breath mingled, their lips touched and glided, their bodies pressed closer and Overgård felt his heart thump, his lungs pant...

He felt saved.

They pulled back after a minute had ticked by, and Lee hid from him by pressing his temple against Overgård's forehead.

“You do this for all your patients?” Overgård joked quietly against the man's stubble. His fingers still clung to Lee's uniform. Lee huffed.

“I would like to tell you I'm a complete professional,” he scoffed lightly as he brushed fingers down Overgård's back, “but the way I've been behaving with you begs to differ.”

He smiled, taking hold of Overgård's hand as he said: “But yeah, just you.” Lee's cheeks were warm, his neck and ears were flushed pink. He was beautiful.

“Good,” Overgård mumbled, feeling his own face heating in response.

Lee released him, pushing his hair back with his hands and taking a deep breath as if to shake himself back into reality. “Then again, I've only worked here for a short six months,” he joked, his eyes a pleasant blue haze as he stepped back to the bed.

“And incidentally, you're currently my only patient,” he spoke coyly as he got back to the task at hand. Overgård was lifted to his feet, and his arms came to rest in the crutches.

“Why?” Overgård asked, his eyes a little over Lee's level as he shuffled one foot forward. Walking on crutches still reminded him of the ski poles he had used for support, when he had walked uphill with the woman on the sledge, right after his leg had been broken by the boulder.

Looking at Lee made it easier to forget.

“You are a hero, in need of care,” Lee smiled, as he joined him by his side. “That earns you a private nurse.” Lee's hand rested on his back, and Overgård's mind rotated around the single patch of warmed skin.

“You took that job description to heart,” he chuckled, smiling flustered through his efforts. Lee laughed, equally heated, and Overgård felt his breath against his neck.

They walked up and down the hall; the movement was slowly getting easier each day. Easier, never easy.

It was after Lee helped him back into his bed, that Overgård saw him linger by the foot-end of the bed, hesitating before he spoke.

“I've fallen for you,” Lee admitted, hands fidgeting with the sheets. Overgård felt his heart beating with vigor rather than with fatigue. He felt alive, rather than surviving.

“Lee,” he breathed.

Lee shook his head, smiling and shifting his eyes away. “I'm sorry.”

Overgård mirrored the shakes. “No...” he said, reaching for Lee's hand.

“No, it's pretty bad,” Lee laughed openly at his own words, but folded his hands over Overgård's nonetheless.

Overgård's chest fluttered. What he couldn't say, he said through the kiss he pressed against Lee's lips.

**

Overgård was getting stronger. 

He walked on crutches, he ate, he drank, his fever was gone and his skin was warm. He showered, he used the lavatory, he could get himself dressed with minimal assistance.

But he hadn't thought of himself outside these walls. It was foreign. It was frightening.

“When they release you, where will you go?” Lee asked him, his voice a quiet stroke of sound as he helped him with the one sock he couldn't manage himself.

Overgård swallowed. Outside, the world still seemed too white. He shook his head as he pulled his shirt down his waist.

“You don't have a home?” Lee asked, placing his hands beside Overgård's hips on the bed. They blinked, eyes restless on the other.

“I have a house,” Overgård said. Fingers tightened in the fabric of his sweats. “All the walls are white.”

Every single one of them. His house, since the divorce, was a small apartment on the fifth floor. His balcony overlooked an elementary school and a shopping mall. His rooms were small, white, simple. He had never shared the space. Only trapped in ice and snow, had he longed for it back.

“Do you want to go there?” Lee asked, his brow low on his pale forehead. The fragile curls on his head bounced chestnut brown in the light.

Overgård breathed in deep. He didn't want to go. He didn't want to live in that bright, noisy place. He didn't want to be alone.

Not without Lee.

“Stay with me,” Lee whispered, before Overgård had gathered his thoughts. The man's eyes were bright, and his hands came to rest on Overgård's knees. “Come home with me, until you are ready to leave.”

It was the only way Overgård had considered his leaving. But the offer was frightening within the hazy contour.

“What if I don't leave?” he asked, looking at Lee and knowing he would never walk from him willingly.

“Then stay,” Lee smiled, a single tear dropping to his hollow cheek as he lowered his head and kissed him.

Lips glided, a tongue chased the warmth inside.

“What colors are the walls?” Overgård asked breathlessly as Lee placed kisses along the bones of his cheeks.

“Brown,” he said between presses of his lips. “Some yellow.” His nose slid along Overgård's. “Some brick.”

Overgård swallowed, feeling himself warm under Lee's mouth. The imaginary snow and ice that still lay thickly upon him melted every time they touched.

“No white?” he asked, and felt Lee's smile against his cheek.

“No white.”

**

The bear. The polar bear was back. Overgård was in the cave with the woman on the sledge behind him, as the polar bear pushed her head through the hole and roared at him.

The flare gun was gone. He searched and searched franticly as the bear climbed into the cave. She was enormous; her teeth sharp and her mouth drooling as she pushed him over, and went straight for the woman.

“No.”

He couldn't see, but he heard the bear. He heard the growls, the smashing of paws and the gnawing of teeth.

“No.”

He couldn't see anything, but he knew, he knew....

“Helmut.”

Until that one voice called him back.

When he opened his eyes, there was darkness surrounding him but for a small, bedside table-lamp. 

Lee was beside him, brushing damp hair from his face. “It's OK,” the man soothed as he rolled closer, turned himself, and spooned their bodies together. “You're OK.”

Overgård embraced him, held the small body in his arms, and smelled the lavender shampoo in Lee's hair.

No dreams haunted him after, inside his new home.

**

The apartment was small, homey and near the park. It was so much more than Overgård had ever been able to make of wood and brick and plaster. He didn't go outside, but the curtains were opened during the day. The view was green.

They were at the dining table, eating macaroni and cheese with sliced chicken and broccoli. Lee knew what went down well.

“I won't ever push you to talk about what happened,” Lee said, as he laid down his fork on his plate. Their eyes met, and Lee smiled at his frown. “But I'm here, and I'll keep being here.”

Their fingers enlaced. Some of Overgård's were shorter.

He looked at their touching skin and shuffled on his seat. Lee worried because of the dreams. But there wasn't much to tell. 

“Not much happened,” he said, feeling the blood drain from his cheeks.

Lee tilted his head, brow furrowing low. “W-what?” he stuttered.

Overgård smiled pain, lowering his head. “Everybody wants to know what happened to me,” he said. “Everybody wants to hear my story.”

They called him a hero. “But not much of anything happened.”

He felt like a fraud. 

Lee squeezed his hand. “I'm not looking for a story,” he said, shaking his head patiently.

Overgård nodded. No. Not Lee.

“We crashed,” he said, bringing up his second hand to squeeze around Lee's. His chest was tight. “I lived, he died.”

The pile of rocks for a grave.

He had tried to find a way out. That first week, he had tried to travel. But he had given up in a matter of days. The plane was safe.

“It was cold, white, endless,” he said. “Sometimes a polar bear.”

Overgård watched the forgotten food on his plate. “Nothing happened for months,” he said, shaking his head, biting down his teeth. “There was just hunger and pain and hopelessness.” 

He lifted his eyes, watching Lee. “Months, almost the entire time I was there, there was nothing.”

Overgård licked his lips, his eyes shifting void on the window. “And then she came.”

Lee nodded and squeezed his fingers. Overgård knew the man could read him, because he saw his own pain reflected back at him in ocean blue.

He felt his windpipe squeeze shut. “He died and s-she was dying, and I tried...”

He had tried. The cave, the hill, the boulder, the helicopter. Blood in the corner of her mouth. He'd left her, when her heartbeat was too soft for him to hear.

“I couldn't...” a sob ripped from his throat. “I thought she was dead.” Their hands released as Overgård buried his face in them, calling to no one but shadows from the past. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Lee was there. He walked around the table and brought him into an embrace.

“She lives,” he said, as he stroked Overgård's hair. “You succeeded.” 

Overgård cried with jerking shoulders, as Lee rocked him in his fragile arms.

“It's OK,” he hummed. “You're not alone.”

“We'll be OK.”

**

It was when Overgård stepped into the bedroom fresh from the shower, that Lee was sitting on the bed, looked up almost shyly at him and said: “I'm in love with you.”

Dressed in a gray undershirt and boxers, Overgård sat down beside him.

He blinked, allowing the silence to become overripe before he said: “Because I'm a hero?” with a clean need for honesty.

Lee chuckled, his fingers tight in the sheets. Nervous as he said: “Because you're the most beautiful human being I have ever seen.”

Overgård allowed the man to take his face in hands, and looked back at him when Lee aligned their noses.

“You give me strength,” Lee said, his tone heavy but pure, and Overgård smiled. His eyes closed as he nuzzled against Lee's stubbled cheek.

“You bring me peace,” he answered him with serene pleasure.

Lee brought him peace. Peace from the white behind his eyes, and peace from the restless search that had always lived within him.

Meaningless sand or snow, life hadn't been anything fruitful. It hadn't had gold light like it did today.

They made love for the first time after that. They kissed, while Lee started tugging on Overgård's shirt. Clothes scattered on the floor as their naked skin pressed together, and their mouths kissed and opened to explore.

Lee scratched at his chest, rubbed across his nipples and kissed down the hair of his belly until Overgård gasped pleasure. Lee took Overgård's cock deep into his wet mouth, hummed around the shaft and leaked hot saliva as he sucked him down.

It was attention, worship in degrees Overgård had never experienced it before. 

Lee shivered when Overgård licked up the shaft of his erection, and swirled his tongue almost carefully around the head. He encouraged him with praise and moans, until Lee's toes curled tight into the sheets. 

Lubricant made the slide of fingers inside Lee's body easier, and Overgård allowed himself to learn how to prepare his partner. Lee was a man, and he had never been close to another before.

He had never known the desire.

Now, all there was, was Lee.

“You're an angel,” Overgård whispered awe as Lee spread his legs, encouraging Overgård to slide on top of him and push into his willing body. He was warm, tight, he was beautiful and welcoming and right.

Nearly maddening, in the only pleasurable way.

Their grunts and kisses rose over the slapping of skin, as they clung to each other with feverish desperation. Joy. It was a first dance that was born from the need for intimacy and the expression of love, and so they clung to each other, mouthed and touched and rolled with the tide.

Their eyes stayed connected, their hips met with every thrust, and their mouths remained open, slack with pleasure and bliss.

Their climax was silent, hard, wrecking only what needed to be wrecked, and blossoming what had wilted. 

They clung to the other after, unwilling to let go.

“I always liked sex,” Lee chuckled as he stretched himself out beside Overgård. “But I never felt as good and warm as I do now.”

Overgård hummed through his nostrils, unable to form proper words as he wrapped a protective arm around Lee's smaller form.

Lee placed a kiss beneath his earlobe. “And I'm crazy about your hairy body,” he whispered giddily, as hands started stroking up and down Overgård's chest, belly and pubic hair. 

After a short nap, Overgård climbed back on Lee again, who clung to him with all four limbs.

**

“I had cancer,” Lee said, his head on Overgård's shoulder as he looked up at him with widened eyes. His body was naked, frail, as it pushed warmly against his. “I almost died because of it.”

Overgård breathed in deep, his fingers tightening on Lee's shoulder.

“When?” he asked.

Lee placed a kiss on his ribs and murmured: “Six months ago. But it's gone,” he said.

His ear pressed against Overgård's chest. Overgård knew his lungs drew tighter breaths, and his heart was beating faster. Lee could hear.

“I'm OK now,” Lee mouthed against his skin.

He couldn't lose Lee. He wouldn't lose Lee.

“I'm OK now,” Lee repeated, rubbing circles on Overgård's chest, who took his hand and squeezed it.

“I'll take care of you,” he said, his eyes connecting with Lee's, and his voice like gravel in his throat. “Always.”

Lee's breath stuttered, before he sprawled himself over Overgård's chest and hid his nose in his neck. “It won't come back,” he mumbled against his skin, as Overgård's hands came to stroke down his naked back.

No. It wouldn't. Not to Lee. His Lee. Lee was gold. 

Lee was the only thing in this world that was good.

“You save me, every day,” Overgård breathed, feeling Lee's tears against his shoulder. “You make the white in my head melt away.”

Lee's skin trembled beneath his touch.

“You are the sun, Lee.” 

Lee chuckled through his tears, as he turned his head to brush his lips against Overgård's ear. “And you're the bear,” he said, smiling against Overgård's skin.

“I'll be your bear,” Overgård breathed, as he squeezed both arms tightly around his man. “As long as I'm yours.”

**

The front door unlocked, and Overgård could see the blue sky opening before him. For the very first time since the white, he stepped outside and looked up, saw the world, the sun.

Lee's fingers curled around his, as they walked outside together.

Overgård's leg ached, but the grass was green, and the birds tattered over their heads.

“Don't forget,” Lee said, as he squeezed his hand warmly. “You're the brown bear in the summer sun.”

Overgård chuckled despite the tightness in his chest, and held onto Lee's arm with his free hand.

“I'm OK,” he said, and Lee hummed beside him.

“I'm here,” he said. “You're not alone.”

And he wasn't.

Overgård was never again alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading a rare pair fic!! ^.^ My very first! After watching Arctic I just had this burning desire to make Overgård smile!! Who better than the man who knows pain, yet never stopped smiling because of it; Lee Fallon! I hope you enjoyed it!!!


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